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Bush to offer new financial support to Palestinian Govt


16/07/2007 - 17:41:11Back to Middle East World Home

US President George Bush, taking on a more active role in the Mideast conflict, is offering new financial support to embattled Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ government.

Bush planned to speak today at the White House about US financial and diplomatic support for Abbas, administration officials said.

Abbas controls just the West Bank after the Islamic militant group Hamas gained authority over Gaza in June.

The president will “talk about ways to try to continue to move forward so that the Palestinian people are going to have a government that responds to their needs, that gives them democratic representation, and also creates the possibility of two states living peacefully, side by side,” said White House spokesman Tony Snow.

“We’ve been working on this for some time,” Snow said.

A senior administration official earlier said the president would announce aid above the £43, (€66m) that the White House already has requested from Congress. That money was to help provide security for Abbas’ Fatah faction.

The administration also has pledged to contribute £20m (€30m) to the United Nations to help the Palestinians, particularly in the Gaza Strip now controlled by Hamas.

After a meeting today in Jerusalem between Israeli and Palestinian leaders, Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat talked about Bush’s upcoming announcement.

“I think it’s a clear-cut endgame here. We are talking about President Bush’s vision of a two-state solution,” said Erekat.

He added that Bush should address “how do you translate this from a vision to a realistic political track? How do you move from a policy of what’s possible to a policy of what is needed?”

“In order to restore credibility and integrity to the peace process, the people of this region, Palestinians and Israelis, must start seeing deeds and not merely words,” Erekat said.

National security adviser Stephen Hadley said that Bush would talk about what the US could do to support Abbas and the new Palestinian prime minister, Salam Fayyad.

“He will have some ideas to suggest about what we are going to do to support them financially, diplomatically.”

Speaking on ABC television’s This Week yesterday, Hadley said there is now an opportunity “to show the Palestinian people a choice between the kind of violence and chaos under Hamas in Gaza and the prospect, under President Abbas and Prime Minister Fayyad, for an effective, democratic Palestinian state that can be on the way toward what we all want, which is a two-state solution – a Palestinian homeland for the Palestinian people.”

Five years ago, Bush called for a separate, independent Palestine alongside Israel.

He was the first US president to back that notion so fully and publicly.

But his administration has taken heavy criticism for letting the peace process drift while conditions worsened for the impoverished Palestinians.

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